Peter Dial Lykins and the Civil War

Peter Dial Lykins

March 4, 2002

From Donald Frisby via Madge Lykins Fackler

In the 1860s the United States was being torn apart with disagreements over slavery and states rights.  The leaders of the Confederacy were predominately Democrats and the Republicans led by Abraham Lincoln upheld the views of the Union.  Kentucky, though a border state, clearly was in the arms of the Confederacy.  Voting records show the only one name with the name of Lykins supported the Republican Party in Kentucky.  He was a blacksmith who lived in Caney, Morgan County, Kentucky.  His name was Peter D. Lykins.

One of the most tragic products of the Civil War was the division it caused not only between states and political views, but between family members as well.  Peter and his wife, Evaline, had more than their share of heartache in this area. They had their whole family shattered by this division.  They were stanch Union Supporters as were their two elder sons, who enlisted in the Union Army. Their other sons were Confederate Sympathizers along with all their neighbors and other kin.

The feelings against Peter by his Confederate Sympathizing kinsmen reached intense proportions.  These strong beliefs and hot tempers finally resulted in Peter being visited in the middle of the night be an angry group of his neighbors and relatives, including his father.  The group was led by William Lykins, who was not only his neighbor, a Baptist preacher, the Judge of Morgan County, but his brother as well.  They were barely given time to get together a few household belongings before being forced to leave.  Peter and his family fled into the cold darkness with $1,000 in gold and Evaline dressed up as a pregnant woman to help get them through the Confederate Lines.  Peter Dial and family traveled north, settling finally in Lewis County, where he founded the town of Petersville.

Where as before Peter had been a stanch Democrat, the same as his Morgan County Kin, he now became a rigid Republican.  Being forcibly evicted from his home as he was, he forbade the word “Democrat” to be said aloud in his house.  Neither Peter Dial nor Evaline ever returned to Morgan County.  They never saw their parents or kinsmen again, with the exception of the visits from Dudley Curl, Peter’s nephew.  It was over 100 years later that there was ever any contact between the two branches of the Lykins family.

Peter Dial Lykins was the great-great grandfather of Dwight Lee Lykins of Shiloh and Shelby, Ohio.